1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a rotary impeller driven turbine whereby relatively small engines are placed at or near the ends of at least two opposing impeller blades on a rotor. The engines propel the impeller blades to turn the rotor and shaft which in turns generates power. The engines are powered by a catalytic combustible reaction that produces steam, preferably by catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. The invention therefore relates to a caturbine, or xe2x80x9ccatalytic turbine.xe2x80x9d
2. Description of Related Art
Creating power by turning a rotor, or wheel, has been known for ages. Water wheels once generated the power needed to crush grain. Giant dams have been built to drive wheels to generate power and electricity. More recent advances have used various mechanisms to generate steam to impinge on rotor impellers (some of which were equipped with cup-like devices to more readily receive the steam) to turn the rotor, and consequently, generate energy. Much research has gone into the various mechanisms to generate the steam.
In a gas and steam-turbine plant, heat contained in an expanded working medium (flue gas) from the gas turbine is utilized to generate steam for the steam turbine. The heat transfer is effected in a heat-recovery steam generator, which is connected downstream of the gas turbine on the flue-gas side and in which heating areas are disposed in the form of tubes or banks of tubes. The latter in turn are connected in the water/steam circuit of the steam turbine. The water/steam circuit normally includes a plurality of pressure stages, for example two pressure stages. Each pressure stage has a preheating and an evaporator heating area.
The steam generated in the heat-recovery steam generator is fed to the steam turbine, where it expands to perform work. In this case, the steam turbine may include a number of pressure stages, which are adapted in their number and layout to the structure of the heat-recovery steam generator. The steam expanded in the steam turbine is normally fed to a condenser and condenses there. The condensate resulting during the condensation of the steam is fed again as feed water to the heat-recovery steam generator, so that a closed water/steam circuit is obtained.
The turbine rotor of a steam turbine of this type is normally mounted in a number of axial and/or radial bearings. One of these bearings, also referred to as the end bearing, is arranged in the interior, for example in the inner hub, of the exhaust steam housing and is used to fix that end of the shaft of the turbine rotor which is located in the exhaust steam housing. The end bearing is normally constructed as a radial bearing, that is to say as a bearing that absorbs radial forces.
The condenser of such a gas and steam-turbine plant, like a heat exchanger, can normally be acted upon by a cooling medium, which extracts heat from the steam for the condensation. In that case, water is normally provided as the cooling medium. As an alternative, however, the condenser may also be constructed as an air condenser, to which air is admitted as the cooling medium.
Wind Turbines provide a source of electrical power as an alternative to fossil fuels to help reduce gaseous emissions and other environmental problems. Wind turbines also provide electrical power in remote areas where power lines have not been strung. Accordingly, numerous wind turbines have been installed in high wind areas in the United States and other countries.
Wind turbines have either horizontal axes or vertical axes of rotation, with each type having different advantages and disadvantages. Vertical axis turbines have, among other advantages, little or no need for a tower on which to mount the turbines. The turbine, gearing electrical generators and the like can generally be mounted at ground level.
Most wind turbines are subject to possible damage from excessively high winds. Vertical axis turbines are less vulnerable to damage from high winds because such turbines are not usually mounted on towers that can be blown over. However, high winds can damage vertical axis turbines by causing them to run at excessively high speeds (RPM), which can cause catastrophic failure of the rotor, gearing, etc.
It is known to provide speed limiters or governors for wind turbines to reduce the risk of damage from high winds and excessively high speed rotation of the turbines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,619 to Aglor discloses a horizontal axis turbine having spring-loaded gate flaps which open responsive to predetermined levels of air pressure to spill air through outlets instead of across the air-engaging blades in the turbine. U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,432 discloses a vertical axis turbine having leaves made of resilient material which are unfolded by centrifugal forces at predetermined rotational speeds to interfere with air that would otherwise cause the rotor to speed out of control. U.S. Pat. Nos. 591,962; 1,586,914 and 4,004,861 also disclose systems for controlling the speed of wind turbines.
A turbine blade or vane for use in the wet steam region of the penultimate and final stages of turbines is described in German published, non-prosecuted Patent Application DE 195 46 008 A1. Such a turbine blade or vane is subject to erosive wear due to impinging water droplets. This erosive wear is reduced by the airfoil of the turbine blade or vane having surface roughness in the region of its leading edge and the region of the suction surface of the blade or vane or in at least a partial region thereof, which surface roughness is markedly increased relative to the surface roughness of the pressure surface of the airfoil. A film of water is held on the surface of the turbine blade or vane by this surface roughness. This film of water reduces the erosive effect of impinging water droplets.
German Patent DE 36 095 41 C2 deals with the reduction of the aerodynamic drag of a body in turbulent flow. The reduction in drag is achieved by reducing the turbulent wall shear stress. For this purpose, the surface of the body is provided with ribs in a plurality of rib formations. The ribs are arranged offset to one another laterally to a flow direction and have short extensions in the flow direction. In particular, DE 36 095 41 C2 reveals such a surface structure for reducing the drag of an aircraft wing.
German published, non-prosecuted Patent Application DE 43 19 628 A1 deals with the structuring of turbo-machine surfaces in contact with fluid. The flow losses are minimized by a applying a grooved structure. The special relationships of fluid pumps are taken into account in this publication.
German Utility Model G 90 13 099 relates to a rotor for extracting energy from a flowing medium or for releasing energy to a flowing medium consisting of a hub and at least one rotor blade. An increase in the efficiency of the rotor is achieved by a rotor blade of the rotor having a corrugated shape. In addition to the absolutely necessary corrugated shape, such a rotor blade can also be completely covered with grooving.
An impeller for a centrifugal compressor, in particular for a gas turbine, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,531. The impeller has vanes which extend radially outward and between which is located an impeller wall. The impeller wall is provided with grooves which extend radially outward so that a boundary layer of gas adhering to the wall is broken up and energy losses are therefore minimized.
U.S. Pat. No.4,023,350 illustrates an appliance that reduces pressure loss in a gas turbine. The appliance consists of a chain of protrusions which extends between two adjacent blades or vanes of a blading ring of the gas turbine. This chain of protrusions acts to generate a vortex so that a boundary layer thickness, and therefore losses due to transverse flows, are reduced.
In the VDI reports No. 1109 of 1994, Jetter and Rie xcex2 describe on page 241 of the article xe2x80x9cAerodynamic Properties of Turbine Blading Profiles of Different Manufacturing Qualitiesxe2x80x9d, the influence of surface roughness on the efficiency of turbine lading profiles. The article states that surface roughnesses, such as milling grooves, have an influence on the profile loss but, because of the importance of other parameters, this influence cannot yet be accurately quantified.
A steam turbine is considered in the book xe2x80x9cTurbo-machinesxe2x80x9d by Klaus Menny, B. G. Teubner Stuttgart, 1995. It is stated therein that water turbines, steam and gas turbines, windmills, centrifugal pumps and centrifugal compressors and propellers are combined under the collective designation of xe2x80x9cturbo-machinesxe2x80x9d. A common feature of all these machines is that they are used for the purpose of withdrawing energy from an active fluid in order to drive another machine or to supply energy to an active fluid in order to increase the pressure of the latter. Using a simple turbine as an example, the mode of operation of a turbo-machine is explained. The active fluid enters the machine and flows first through a blading ring of stationary guide vanes. This increases the velocity and therefore the kinetic energy of the active fluid. Its pressure and therefore its potential energy are reduced. At the same time, the shape of the guide vanes produces a velocity component in the peripheral direction of a rotor blade ring downstream of the guide vane ring. By means of the rotor blade ring, the active fluid gives up its kinetic energy to the rotor, to which the rotor blade ring is connected, because the direction and frequently also the magnitude of the velocity of the active fluid is changed when flowing over the rotor blades. The rotor blade ring is made to rotate. The active fluid emerges from the machine with reduced energy content. The ratio between the mechanical energy gained from the turbine and the energy withdrawn from the active fluid characterizes the efficiency of the turbine.
Nuclear energy also can be used to create stream to drive a rotor blade ring or assembly, but these reactors suffer from obvious safety and environmental drawbacks. Other mechanisms have employed combustible fuels to generate the steam. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,164 discloses the use of an Arvil Porter type rocket motor that receives hydrogen peroxide fuel, and catalytically decomposes the hydrogen peroxide with a suitable catalyst to produce steam in a violent reaction. The steam impinges on and drives a flywheel that in turn generates power. These and other systems are inefficient insofar as some of the steam misses the impellers on the flywheel and thus goes unused, thereby generating exorbitant amounts of steam that must be exhausted from the system.
Gilbert Magill invented some time ago a portable, one-man helicopter powered by rocket engines disposed at the tips of rotor blades. U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,199 discloses such a system. The rocket engines can be comprised of small engines that catalytically decompose a fuel to create steam which exits the engine at rapid speeds thereby creating a reactive force that rotates the rotor about its shaft. To date, the one man helicopter has not been successful, although the Intora Firebird currently is under development in England.
There exists a need to provide a system that can generate power without adversely affecting the environment, and without depleting our natural resources. In addition, there exists a need to develop a system for generating power that does not suffer from inefficiencies in the use of steam, and does not require excessive exhaust of unused steam (condensed or uncondensed).
Each of the documents described above is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
There is a need to solve the problems noted above. For example, there is an increasing need to provide a turbine that can generate power with little excess waste, and with little or no pollution generated by burning of fossil fuels, or use of nuclear energy.
It is therefore a feature of an embodiment the present invention to provide a turbine having a rotor with a plurality of impeller blades whereby at least two rocket engines are mounted on opposed impeller blades to drive the rotor. The rocket engines are designed to generate exhaust that does not contain any substantial amount of toxins, and that are capable of producing the exhaust without the need for fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
In accordance with a preferred feature of an embodiment of the invention, the rocket engines produce steam by catalytically decomposing hydrogen peroxide. In accordance with another preferred feature of an embodiment of the invention, the rocket engines produce steam by reaction of water with a metal hydride to produce hydrogen, which then is combusted in a suitable combustion chamber to generate steam exhaust. The steam exhaust generated by the rocket engine is capable of rotating the impeller blades on the rotor by virtue of their axially opposed attachment to opposing impeller blades.
These and other features of the invention will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the description of preferred embodiments that follows.